That 4 Friends Movie
Day 17 - Saturday
Today was the undisputed day from CONTINUITY HELL!
And it simply couldn’t be helped, because the script
distinctly called for a dinner table scene for six.
First thing in the morning, I’m breaking speed laws
to get to the set on time. I don’t know how the time got by – I
set the clock for 5:15 a.m. wake-up call, because yesterday was a
walkaway and everything should basically be in place at the house to
get an early start. But it was suddenly 6:30 and I had to
get 40 minutes away. But I get to crew parking, and eventually
the set, and the ADs are sitting in front of the house, legs stretched
out, leisurely snacking on breakfast. Michael told me I was nuts,
since talent wasn’t even due in for another twenty minutes.
I tell Locations Carrie and PA Gabriel about how
funny
I thought Jane’s joke was about the Rice Crispies in Snap, crackle and pahp, and PA Kent steps up and says
that was Richard’s joke. Oh,
they gleam all the good stuff off Richard, I tell them, and I name
another one that everyone thought was Harry’s. Then I tell them
about Thomas taking my joke and using it
as his own one day, and how he plummeted on my list after 15 years of
liking him - I have no tolerance for people taking credit for someone
else’s joke. They called me brutal, and assured me they’d stay
out of my way.
I find out Diane Props, Chris Props’ wife, got
saddled with cooking the brisket for this big dinner scene, and I ask
her how long it took. Chris breaks in, telling me how late she
was up, and I say, no, how many hours? She says six. I
smile and say, yeah, ‘cause it’s dark when she picks them up from the
Madonna Inn, and then she cooks this big meal, and I’m like, is it like
2 a.m. when they’re eating? She smiles and says, “Yeah, we were
wondering why she had a bicycle rack on her car that could fit four
bikes on it to bring them back to her house.” And the nit-picking
ends there.
Film history experience moment - Art Director
Stewart tells me how little things are not noticed by the average
audience, like when he was doing Chinatown,
and it’s the big scene where Nicholson drives up to the hotel and goes
in and Dunaway says she’s my daughter, blah blah blah.
Anyway, in this big wide shot, when the camera cranes down, he sees an
upper floor window in the building has caught reflection of one of the
lights and it looks like a television on in an apartment, which blows
the whole 1930’s setting. All he had to do was open the window,
and they wouldn’t let him take the time. It bothers him to this
day.
So I relax and eat my breakfast and before you know
it, the actors are walking in for rehearsal and I’m scrambling to get
my notes together.
So I’m really nervous, and have been telling people
this all through breakfast. Yesterday, Richard and Laura took 11
takes to get one scene down where they both basically stared into a
mirror at each other and didn’t have props in and out of their
hands. Today, I’ve got six people eating and drinking throughout
an entire scene and I have to keep up not only with what and when
they’re eating for their close-ups, I’ve got to keep up with the level
of wine and water in the glasses and how the food looks on their
plates. Oh, and it’s also eye-line hell. Since you
constantly cut back and forth between people who are looking at each
other from different points at the table (Jane may look right at Thomas
and left at Harry, Harry needs to look left at Jane but maybe left at
Richard and Richard would have to look right at Harry but…AIGHEEEEE),
you’re pretty tense. You pray your mistakes are small ones,
because you know there will be mistakes.
We start with the read through. They don’t
like the “chuffa chuffa” as Jane calls it, banter that just doesn’t
work
and things get cut and reworked.
More banter among the actors, Harry’s doing his
frighteningly funny Brando impersonation, then he starts singing U2’s Running to Stand Still with Thomas
– Harry wants off the set by 7 because he’s got tickets to their big
concert tonight – and then at song's end, Thomas melts it into his
impersonation of Springsteen singing Secret
Garden, which I thought was an amusing transition.
Then Jane gets really tickled, and, at the probing
of Harry, Richard and Thomas, announces “The first movie filmed
entirely in
Schmact-o-vision!” and she’s laughing. And Harry follows up with
“At the Schmactorama Dome!”
So here we go.
And Marcy stepped up to me and asked if I needed any
help. Of course I do, but how much can I accept and still look
impressive at my job? Screw it, I say ABSOLUTELY. So she
and Tracy make their wardrobe notes in the corner, and Harry calls to
me, “Hey, Marilyn, are you going to be watching me and all my stuff,
because I know I won’t remember a thing.” I assure him I will,
and now I’m really nailed, because he’s admitting up front he’s going
to be trouble and I’m committed to him. So I ask Marcy to
watch Laura and I’ll cover the rest. Marcy offers to cover Jane
and Thomas, since they’re back to me, and Tracy to watch the actor
playing the father (this information scares Tracy, but she
accepts). I accept, especially since Jane’s great at doing the
same thing with the same props and Thomas stays minimal as possible
because he hates having to keep up with that stuff while he’s trying to
focus on acting. We get ready, and Chris Props asks Alfredo if he
wants the candle lit. I wave frantically and mouth NOOOOO!!!! and
Alfredo says “Absolutely!” and my arms fall into surrender wave
(candles forget to get re-lit, candles melt to different heights during
a take like a really huge vertical cigarette, and where do you put them
when doing coverage on the actors?). I park in a chair near
the table, since I know the fuzzy black and white monitor isn’t going
to help me today.
Laura requests someone make a joke so they’ll all be
laughing when she starts her dialog, and I immediately think of Harry’s
Helen Keller joke, which I tell people sitting around me is really a
crewmember’s joke, and Harry, way out of earshot from me, tells the
Helen Keller joke, they laugh, and he credits the crewmember.
Alfredo, inspired, announces we should film the joke too, and I call to
Alfredo that we’ve all ready got that joke on film, When? He wants to
know. At San Pedro, I tell him. Then it’s Harry’s turn to
tune in late and he calls to me that NO!, he’s just telling the joke
for Laura, which I know! I was paying attention, just trying to
explain it to – oh, never mind.
It’s going to be a long morning.
So we do take one, which ends early because Laura
needs another take. Fine, I had perfect notes on Harry eating his
mashed potatoes and screwing with Richard, and Richard is fabulously
quiet. We do take 2, and once again I have perfect notes nailing
every moment Harry shakes his fork at whomever and what food is on it
and when Richard drinks his wine and it’s just so perfect.
Alfredo doesn’t like it. Take 3, and Harry is hardly doing
anything, so I don’t have any notes because nothing he does stands out
– which doesn’t mean his hands weren’t somewhere at different places
and different times. This is the take Alfredo wants – moving on
to Laura’s close-up. Gulp. Marcy runs to me with her
notes, really frazzled for Marcy, who’s usually the calm confident
anchor for me on the set, and she’s telling me she hardly looked at
Thomas or Jane, since Laura kept her hands full. So she hands me
her note card and she briefs me on all things Laura, and tells me to
take credit for the notes – she doesn’t mind if I look like
Superwoman. I thank her, but tell her I’ll call her in
anyway. She pouts and says, “This is hard!” She walks away,
and I find that my mind is full of Laura and empty of Harry.
Double gulp.
So a small break to re-set the camera, and I’m off
checking with PA Gabriel to make sure he re-lit the candle on the last
take, which he did. We return, and my heart is thumping.
Now I’m watching the monitor for the close-ups, and Alfredo’s parked
next to me. Take 1, and as the camera tilts down following Laura
sitting down, Mike calls cut and asks if shouldn’t the candle be
lit. I cover my face, disbelieving my first mistake is the first
8 seconds of coverage. I finally glance through my fingers at
Alfredo’s ice cold blue-eyed glare. He tells me I should be by
the table, not sitting here at the monitor, I should have caught
that. Duh.
So I sit and wait, trying to decide whether or not
to leave the monitor, which I think is the best way for me to memorize
Laura’s movements. Then Tracy comes over and whispers to me that
Alfredo’s at the table and they’re all talking about passing the salad
bowl around during the coverage now, even though they didn’t during the
master, because it just feels right. So I thank her and, shaking
like a leaf, I get up and go to the table, telling myself not to cry,
not to cry, not to cry.
Take 2, and Laura opts to eat for the final section
instead of drink from her wine glass. I mention this to her, she
comments that she’ll never get this, I go - nervous, since I'm trying
to get the continuity right without upsetting the actors which tends to
upset the director - to Alfredo and force him to
focus on me for a quick conference where he agrees it’s okay as long as
she ends the scene holding the glass. So I happily call out to
her, “Laurie, you can do whatever you want with the glass.” And
she says, “Oh, thank you,” in a voice that sounds like she wasn’t
really looking for my permission, then following with, “Marilyn, it’s Laura.” And I just stop dead
and look at her. All this, and I’m mispronouncing the Broadway
star’s name. Part of me is adding this to my stress list, another
part of me is screaming in my head I DON’T CARE HOW YOU PRONOUNCE YOUR
NAME! I GOT MOST OF THE LETTERS RIGHT, DIDN’T I???
Take 3’s up.
Mario starts asking me if I’m really sure we’re on
take 3, he thinks it’s take 2 (even though I’ve got my time for take 2
written in my notes), he’s going to check with Sound and see what take
they think it is, and three people yell my name wanting to know if
Laura is holding her glass at the point of the scene where we’re now
starting. I don’t know! Wait a minute – yes. Mario
tells me that sound says I’m right. So just as we’re about to go
again, I notice she’s taking the bottle in her left hand and her glass
in her right hand, a first. I quickly look back at Marcy,
frowning “Bottle in right hand?” and she’s looking at me like her brain
exploded and she’s wide-eyed and frantically mouths “I DON’T
KNOW!” so just as they’re about to yell “Rolling!” I cry out,
“Laura!” She looks at me. I say, “The bottle in your right hand,
glass in the left.” There’s a dramatic quiet on the set, all the
actors freeze, looking at each other. Laura points the wine
bottle at me and, wide-eyed, slowly nods her head, impressed.
Harry mutters, “Ooo, she’s good.” All I can think is, you’re
impressed, and I just see me trying to dig myself out of a hole.
We break for lunch, and I’m sitting on the sofa in
the dark behind the monitor, realizing this is the perfect time to
break down, release some stress, and let myself cry, which I do.
PA Sarah’s sitting near
me and eventually I ask her “Sarah, will you do you me favor?
Will you get me a tissue?” and she’s up and gone in no time. Then
PA Craig calls out, “Marilyn, are you crying?” and I have to straighten
my
voice quickly enough to say “No, I’ve just got the sniffles,” so nobody
on the set sees me losing it, a reasonably unprofessional look, I
should think. After a while, AC Linda and loader Zeke catch sight of me
and rush to my side in an attempt to make me feel better. Zeke
starts rubbing my back and won’t stop for the duration of the
conversation, while Linda assures me our slap-dash schedule is wrecking
everyone’s skill-level, and the GC Matthew day when they said “Moving
on” and she pulled her marks off the focus-ring and then they said
“Going again” and wouldn't give her time to re-set, she had tears going
down her face for the whole take.
I finally go to lunch, and all I’ve got in my head
is Laura’s voice saying “It’s Laura.”
So eventually I step over
to Laura to apologize, but Teresa’s talking to her and I get there in
time to hear her ask Laura, “So, what’s your last name?” and I’m just
looking at her, thinking how dumbfounded I am to hear this and how
incredibly off the hook I think I just got. I still tell her, “I
wanted to apologize for mispronouncing your name on the set.
Clearly, I know your name, I was just flustered,” and naturally, she
rubs my arm with her hand and tells me people mispronounce her name all
the time and saying that was just habit.
Oh, and another thing. Alfredo wanted takes 4
and 6 from Laura’s close-up, and I suddenly realized he probably
doesn’t know take 4 started in mid-scene, but then again, I’m not sure
either, and since she kept stopping and having to start over, I
couldn’t check running time to see if it was a complete take (also why
camera tried but couldn’t help me), which in all the hubbub, I missed
writing down. So I finally get the bright idea to go to Sound
Peter and
ask him how much trouble it is for me to hear his sound playback, and
please, I really can’t handle any sarcasm at this point in my
life. He looks disappointed and asks if I’m sure I can’t handle
any sarcasm, and I say, oh, yes, I’m sure. So he rolls it back
and
yes, 4 starts mid-scene, so I get to go to Alfredo and let him know he
hasn’t requested a circle take on the beginning, and he’s happy and
says yes, please, circle the earlier complete ones for that. Yea.
Harry’s ready to get this show on the road – he’s
got the U2 deadline thing happening. So he calls out “Last looks!
Rolling!” and AD Michael starts laughing and announces over the radio
that
the actor is taking over the part of AD now. “I want to get out
of here!” cries Harry. “Don’t you like us, Harry?” I ask over the
crowd. “I love YOU, Marilyn! I love you!,” he calls over
the crowd. “Only you, Marilyn!” and he looks into the camera, which
relays to me watching the monitor and he starts schmacting it up, “I
love you, I really really love you…”
I’m at the craft service table and I hear Harry’s
voice, “Hey, Bill! I’m crushing your head! I’m crushing
your head!” Bill laughs. I call out, “Bill! Go
defense!” He
doesn’t get it. Then I hear Harry call out, “Hey, Marilyn!”
I look over, and he’s holding his fingers up to his eyes (from the Kids
in the Hall routine) and pinches them, calling out “I’m crushing
your
head! I’m crushing your head!” So I put up my hands for the
optical illusion of trying to
separate his fingers, squishing my face into a power struggle, and
Harry laughs. “Hey, can I have that?” I smile, wishing
Gabriel and Carrie were there to hear a classy guy ask for permission
when using someone else’s joke. I tell him yes, and he says “Did
they do that?” and I tell him about the “I’m pinching your face/I’m
crushing your head” fight episode, which featured the finger separation
move.
Bits and pieces of more scenes, the main four doing
their watching Richard’s character tripping scene, another scene with
Laura, and some shots of Richard and Thomas sleeping. Richard’s
easy, he’s practically asleep in the beanbag chair anyway. It’s
Thomas sleeping on the sofa that becomes a physical
improbability.
He wasn’t here the day before when they added lines about him
snoring. So he’s lying on the sofa, wearing only boxer shorts and
a blanket wrapped around his leg, and he thinks his sleeping is
fine. Then Alfredo starts commanding him to snore. He
obliges with a subtle snore, and Alfredo says “More! Louder!” and
Thomas is confused. You’re kidding, right? So he manages
two loud snores before he starts laughing. Alfredo tells him we
need more snores because it’s part of a joke, and Thomas gets it now,
but the next take puts him in the giggles and he can’t pull off more
than two straight snores without losing it.
Second meal arrives, Chinese food, cool – except one
too many of us asks “No chopsticks?” and Jennifer’s about to order
sweet-n-sour crew for the next meal. And we eat, knowing we’ve
got three more scenes and what are you doing this weekend?
Weekend? asks disgruntled slaves of two-day weekends. We
only get Sunday off, which needs to be used to pack in the sleep
because we’re starting a week of night shoots. This means staying
up as late as possible tonight to try to get your body used to working
5 p.m. to 5 a.m. in a 48-hour turnaround.
Just as I’m starting to relax, thinking about how I
seemed to have survived the continuity hell dinner scene, word gets to
me that they’re calling for Props to put together a dinner plate,
because they forgot to shoot the insert of it. I should have
reminded them while we were standing at the table with the plate
setting – if I’d known it was on their mental shot list – it did cross
my mind, since it’s mentioned in script, but they were intent on
clearing the actors. So I’m feeling lousy, really lousy, and I
finally go to Alfredo and apologize and he looks at me confused and
says, “Not your fault – you didn’t know. We didn’t tell
you.” Cool!
So we’re just getting to the martini shot with
Laura, and I’m walking out the door to give early notes to Jennifer,
and I hear AD Michael call out, “Marilyn! Get your ass back in
here!” and I turn around, shocked to hear him address me that
way, and he’s laughing. So he hurries over and crowds me in
secret meeting mode and says, “What’s this about Laura and a phone
conversation?” and I cry “F*%K!” to Michael’s shocked and amused
expression, and I continue with “F*%k! F*%k! F*%k!” I tell him
Todd only told me three times to be sure not to forget that we record
Laura’s other side of a phone conversation from another scene.
I’m so doomed, it’s unbelievable. So Gregg steps up and nobody
told him to write the script! And we tell him he can write it
now, it’s a short phone conversation replying to the one he all ready
wrote, but I say again that Sound is wrapped! We can’t record
it! And Michael wants to know why Todd didn’t tell him, because
he’s the AD and if they want something on the schedule, they have to
tell him. So I can’t believe it. So Michael says he’ll talk
to Alfredo, and while I’m scrambling with Gregg to write the script,
Michael returns with Alfredo’s answer of not to worry about it.
But I point out Todd really should be told, and Michael agrees, and I
follow him around and he looks, but no Todd and he turns around and
faces me, telling me that he asked Alfredo, and Alfredo said no.
That’s what he’s telling Todd. That’s what he’s telling
Todd. Get it? So I say that’s a good story, and walk away
with a few more tears out of my system.
A wrap on Laura and the night, and I walk to the
production office and start laughing uncontrollably remembering Marcy’s
“I DON’T
KNOW!” face when she couldn’t remember which hand Laura was supposed to
hold
the bottle in.
That 4
Friends Movie
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